GARDENS : Business Is Blooming

The country lanes of northern San Diego County are dotted with small nurseries--none prettier than Judy’s Perennials on Buena Creek Road in San Marcos. Specializing in new plants that both thrive in our warm climate and provide refreshing color, Judy Wigand turned her hobby into a business in 1987. Just a year earlier, she had begun a home garden with a truckload of horticultural treasures from a Huntington Botanical Gardens plant sale, plus seeds and cuttings from some of the area’s best growers. Tough, drought-resistant perennials that didn’t require much fuss or water soon became her favorites.

In the front garden (above), plants are elevated on mounds of imported topsoil and mushroom compost so that flowers bloom near eye level. There are Santa Barbara daisies, verbena, Mexican tulip poppies and wallflowers. Across a granite path grows one splashy annual, Agrostemma githago , or corn cockle.

On display in back (opposite), huge clumps of Pacific Coast iris, tall bearded iris, dusky columbine and pink phlox line a gravel path. Alstroemeria, salvia and penstemon, three of her personal favorites, bloom later in spring. Bulbs--most of them native to South Africa, such as pink watsonias (inset)--also are scattered throughout the beds.

Wigand has planted the entire half-acre around her home so that it’s overflowing with tried-and-true plants. But whenever she finds new, carefree perennials, such as the lavender blue Scabiosa africanus and the pink Nemesia fruticosa , there always seems to be room for more.